[Air-L] CfP: Digital War Special Issue (reminder)

[Olga Boichak]

*Call for Papers: My War: Participation in Warfare, Special Issue of
the Digital War Journal *


https://www.digital-war.org/blog/2020/11/23/special-issue-my-war-call-for-papers


Edited by *Olga Boichak*, University of Sydney, and *Andrew Hoskins*,
University of Glasgow



In a time when we study, work, shop, and socialise remotely, digital media
also afford unprecedented opportunities for remote participation in armed
conflicts. Blurring the boundaries between military and civilian actors,
physical and mediated battlefronts, weapons and witnesses, citizens and
diasporas, digital technologies do not simply offer new capabilities in
conducting military operations – extending the battlefronts into the realms
of communication and perception, they reconstitute the social conditions
shaping people’s relationship to wars.



This special issue foregrounds the emerging participatory patterns in
military conflicts, attending to the higher-order social transformations
that challenge and transform our understanding of wars. The submissions
present a collection of insights and perspectives on participatory futures
of armed conflicts.



For example, the concept of ‘participative war’ (Merrin 2018) highlights
how new ‘architectures of participation’ (O’Reilly 2004) offered by web 2.0
platforms as well as connected and mobile media devices enable a wide range
of actors to have their say and participate in warfare in an immediate and
ongoing fashion. Media have made war seem increasingly granular, enabling
(albeit unevenly) an array of actors (militaries, states, soldiers,
citizens, photo/journalists, NGOs) to continually upload, post, edit,
forward, delete, show and hide a multitude of perceptions around the
unfolding of the mundane and the spectacular.



Others argue that we are living in a time of ‘radical war’ (Ford & Hoskins,
forthcoming) namely that the interaction between media spectacle, connected
technologies and the politics of violence obscures the relationship between
military cause and political effect.

This special issue seeks interdisciplinary contributions to shape a new
agenda for the study and understanding of the relationship between war and
participation in digital media ecologies.



Contributions may include, but not necessarily be confined to, the
following themes:

·       Witnessing and knowing

·       New forms of knowledge

·       Perception, attention and data

·       Blurring of boundaries

·       Compassion, morality and action

·       Infrastructures and architecture

·       Visual participation

·       Distance and proximity

·       Mundane and the spectacular

·       New and old concepts of war and media

·       Remembering and forgetting

·       Crowds and open source intelligence

·       Overcrowded and hyperconnected battlefield



*Contributions may include*:

·       Full research articles (6-12,000 words)

·       Image/art works

·       Commentaries

·       Reviews

·       Interviews



*Timetable:*

*15 January, 2021*

Deadline for receipt of abstract/proposals of no more than 300 words,
including author(s) names and affiliations.

*31 January, 2021*

Authors informed of decisions.

*16 August, 2021*

Deadline for submission of full contributions.

*August-December 2021*

Review process and revisions

*Spring 2022*

Full special issue publication (accepted articles will be published earlier
in online first)



Please send your submissions or reach out with any questions to *Olga
Boichak*, *olga.boichak at sydney.edu.au <olga.boichak at sydney.edu.au>*


*___________________________*

*Dr Olga BOICHAK*

Lecturer in Digital Cultures
<https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/olga-boichak.html>

*The University of Sydney*

Department of Media and Communications

School of Literature, Art, and Media

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
<https://sydney.edu.au/arts/study/study-areas/media-and-communications.html>



*Digital War Journal* <https://www.digital-war.org/digital-war-introduction>,
Editor

olga.boichak at sydney.edu.au | sydney.edu.au

@olgarithmic | olgarithmic.net